This book unravels the ethnic history of California since the late nineteenth-century Anglo-American conquest and the institutionalization of 'white supremacy' in the state. Drawing from an array of primary and secondary sources, Tomas Almaguer weaves a detailed, disturbing portrait of ethnic, racial, and class relationships during this tumultuous time. A new preface looks at the invaluable contribution this book has made to our understanding of ethnicity and class in America and of the social construction of 'race' in the Far West.